


S1E01 - Pilot

by BigSciencyBrain



Series: Come Valhalla [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Gen, Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Space Gladiators AU, holidaystoking2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigSciencyBrain/pseuds/BigSciencyBrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers fall during the Battle of New York, disappearing completely, and the Chitauri overtake the Earth. Two years later, mankind is struggling to adapt to their new world and Sharon Carter discovers what happened to Captain America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neurovicky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neurovicky/gifts).



The hope in Sharon Carter's heart, however illogical and desperate, never flickered out. 

It kept burning, twisting and guttering, in the face of the never ending grind of her planet being conquered by an alien species. The Chitauri had come in waves; a great ocean of death peeling out from smoking crater that had once been New York City and rising like a tide. 

But the tide ebbed too and the Chitauri, for all their superior strength and coordination were even more dependent on technology than the humans they were attempting to wipe from the face of the planet. They needed power - endless, incredible amounts of power - to drive their weapons and to survive against temperatures their reptilian-like bodies couldn't handle without armor. They'd kept the major cities and their infrastructure largely intact, modifying what they saw fit and keeping scores of humans as slave labor to feed their hunger for power.

Earth had seen great reptiles before and she took comfort in knowing that mammals, like her, had begun in the dinosaurs' reign. They'd been small and weak in the face of the gargantuan beasts, but they were adaptable and sneaky as hell, and that hadn't changed.

After the Fall, they'd scattered to the winds, to the empty and cold places of the Earth. The shattered pieces of humanity slipped through the cracks and spread out where the Chitauri saw no reason to go. It was a foreign concept to the Chitauri, whose Hive bond was so complete that the idea of isolation probably never occurred to them. Forests sheltered spontaneous villages; acres of corn and soybean fields became epicenters. They reached back into their history and pulled forward the pieces of their past that the Chitauri couldn't consider a threat; steam power and clockwork mechanisms with no electricity required, only the steady certainty of the laws of physics. Huddled together, they stayed dark and quiet and they became invisible, or simply unimportant, to the more advanced technology of the Chitauri.

Two years had passed since New York City and she knew Earth would never be the same; humanity would never be the same. But she also believed they would survive. She might not see the end of Chitauri rule in her lifetime, especially considering how much shorter the average lifespan was in the post-Chitauri world, but she held fast to her faith that it _would_ happen.

Her last waypoint used to be a Wawa. They'd siphoned out the last of the gasoline more than a year before and scavengers had gotten the rest, right down to the copper wiring out of the walls. The shell remained and she'd stay there through the darkest hours of the night. When the moon was full, she could make good progress over the broken, weed-choked remains of country highways and interstates, but without it, she was safer in the short windows of dusk and dawn when she had enough light to travel but not enough to be seen out in the open. There was an old road sign near buried in weeds, its reflective paint chipped and fading: _Chancellorsville Battleground Park._

She shivered, pulling the heavy woolen sweater tighter over her chest, and tried not to remember what Virginia had looked like before the Chitauri. It felt like another life now; boot camp; Quantico; being recruited by SHIELD. In the spring and summer, the forests were raucous with crickets, tree frogs, and cicadas, but in the dead of winter, even as mild as this winter had been, it was eerily quiet. Winter was safer; the Chitauri hunkered down when the cold and snow began. The first winter after the Chitauri invasion, the Eastern seaboard had seen record snowfall and that fluke of weather was all that had saved the United States from utter annihilation. She'd heard there were new human cities rising in the cradle of the Rocky Mountains, but that could be just another rumor.

Idly, she wished she knew what had become of the rest of the world. Were there countries still intact, their lights still burning? Had anyone struck back against the Chitauri and won? Maybe the ever secretive Wakanda had withstood, with its inpenetrable borders and precious stores of vibranium. 

When she'd been part of SHIELD - when SHIELD had even existed in more than memory - she'd made it a point to keep up with world events. News from the outside was rare now. There were rumors, always rumors, and it had taken months for the world to go silent, with bits and pieces slipping through. Nuclear weapons had been used, they knew that much. Perhaps it had been lucky the Chitauri had been able to render them useless. She'd give a day's worth of rations to know _how_ they'd been able to do that, and another's day's worth to know the fate of the SHIELD team who'd been at ground zero: the Avengers. They were believed dead, overwhelmed by the sheer number of Chitauri pouring down out of the sky, but they lived on in campfire tales and bedtime stories.

The old Wawa came into view when she rounded a corner; its broken windows long since cleared of glass, since the shards could be used as cutting tools. The sign had fallen, leaving the bare pole standing like a spire toward the sky, empty of utility but not ready to give way. She moved more carefully now. Humans weren't the only creatures on Earth seeking refuge from the elements and the Chitauri. She'd seen opossums and raccoons earlier, and there was a sizable feral cat colony in the area. More dangerous were the motley packs of dogs that roamed wild now, intermingling and breeding with coyotes and even foxes; their ancestors had been pets lost or abandoned in the chaos.

Inside smelled of decay and animals. Without light from the stars, she couldn't see much further than her hand in front of her face, but didn't want to waste the precious few matches she still had only to avoid a stubbed toe or bruised knee. In one of the dark corners she found a hollow in the wall, feeling blindly for the edges of the old metal foot locker. Every waypoint had one and travelers kept them resupplied as much as they could. This close to Washington DC, along what had been the I-95 corridor, was still a major crossroads from North to South; she knew it would be tended to more often than the others. The latch clicked as she opened the box and reached inside, fingers closing around a long, slender cylinder. She shrugged her pack from her shoulders to fish through the contents, digging out a small metal tin that had held breath mints in its past life. Three matches rattled inside the case; she sacrificed one of them to light the taper candle.

There wasn't much else in the foot locker that she could or would take with her. Speed depended on traveling light and she needed to minimize how much time she spent this close to the Chitauri raiding parties. Her eyes widened when she saw a large box of matches tucked into a corner of the box. It was mostly full and she praised the blessed soul who had left them. She found first aid supplies, a makeshift sewing kit, some hard candies that would weather time and the seasons, as well as a few odds and ends for fellow travelers. Against one side was a slender notebook with a worn pencil tied to the frayed spiral binding with a length of twine.

She added her own entry to the notebook. _Sharon Carter. Richmond south James garrison. Heading to Mary Wash; medicine. Clear to the south; no sightings._

There were several pages of entries. She glanced over them with idle curiosity, scanning over jerky handwriting in the dim, golden candlelight. Only the first page had dates. After that, the notes referenced seasons if there was any mention of passing time. An entry here or there gave warnings of bears or wolves; a few more gave directions to the nearest haven for travelers. One entry told her to be wary of a man named Big Chuck, who was apparently a cheat and a thief.

Settling the book back in the box, she replenished her store of matches and took one of the smaller, mostly used candles. In return, she left a solid length of cord, easily ten feet long. She was loathe to part with it, but someone else had sacrificed far more to leave behind the box of matches. Take something, leave something was the cardinal rule of all Waypoints.

Anxious not to burn too much of the candle, she located a relatively secure place to sleep and unrolled the worn sleeping bag she'd scavenged from a Gander Mountain. She wouldn't be warm, but she wouldn't freeze to death either. With her bed set, she blew out the candle and returned it to the foot locker for the next traveler to use. Her hair twisted up into a rolled braid and the canvas pack served well enough as a pillow. She shivered inside the sleeping bag, shifting her legs to squeeze shut the three inch tear in the fabric on one side. The handle of the hunting knife she carried was solid beneath her fingertips. It was a precaution; a last resort in case she stumbled into unfriendly territory.

Sleep was a fickle thing. She was used to tuning out the scurrying of tiny clawed feet and the far off yowl of a cat fight. She knew the cries of the night birds. But it was easy to doubt her own ears in the pitch black, to wonder if she'd heard the howl of a wild dog. She curled tighter into the sleeping bag. Dawn would come; she would leave this waypoint behind and make her way the last few miles to Mary Wash, where they'd heard - _they hoped_ \- there were still viable doses of antibiotics. 

How easily they died now; how much they'd taken for granted beyond air conditioning and iPhones.

When dawn began to creep into the sky, the stars still twinkling across a backdrop of inky blue, she was already awake. Her muscles would loosen and shake off the cold as she walked. Breakfast was hard tack, leathery turkey jerky, and brackish water she'd carried with her; she fantasized about scones and lattes as she chewed. One last sweep of the Wawa to be sure she was leaving nothing of value behind and she headed out into the chill of early morning. The forests were wreathed with mist. It hung heavy in the clearings and set her nerves on edge. Fog hid surprises and she didn't like surprises, but it would also buy her more time. A heavy fog wouldn't lift until nearly midday, hiding her as much everything else.

While she walked, she wondered if Virginia would bear the scars of the Chitauri invasion as clearly it still bore the scars of the Civil War, their markers and remembrances standing like ghostly sentinels of a lost civilization. 

The fog held, for better or worse, until she saw a collapsed bridge that had once crossed the Rappahannock River. There was ice along the river banks even as her boots left tracks in stubbornly green patches of grass and clover. Mentally, she catalogued edible and non-edible plants as she passed beds of ivy, box woods, and holly bushes. The city was quiet now. Rusting cars sat abandoned on the highway and she saw houses with caved in roofs and walls, their yards long since returned to the wild. She approached once been one of the largest shopping complexes in the country. Now it was a transient marketplace and rendezvous for traffic that came on foot or on horseback. It was close enough to siphon resources from the Chitauri compound in DC but far enough away that they could disappear into the woods when the Chitauri ran low on slave labor and sent out raiding parties. Gigantic retail stores stood as still as the pyramids of Egypt, their insides transformed into shelters, barns, and even places to put the dead or dying. 

She gazed wistfully at the remnants of what had been a Target, but moved on to an old Lowes store. There were signs of people now; she saw tracks in the mud from boots and horseshoes. When she was near enough to see the hulking blue and gray shape emerge from the fog, she heard the telltale whistle of a scout. She stopped, holding still, and whistled back the two-tone call that would let them know she was a friendly. Then she waited to be approached. 

He was young, with close cropped hair and rich brown skin. He would've been barely out of high school if they still had that kind of thing. A hunting rifle was held loosely in his hands, but he gave her a nod. "Come from the south?"

"Richmond. Looking for medicine."

"Ain't got a lot of that to go round."

She held his gaze. Most of the garrison's meager supply of working batteries were heavy in the bottom of her pack but she didn't want to give away her barter until she'd been able to get a look at the drugs herself. "It was a long walk north. Don't suppose you've got a place I could rest my feet?"

After a moment's consideration, he nodded and motioned for her to follow him back to the Lowes. The windows had been boarded up and the automatic doors replaced with heavy wooden beams bound with iron. She eyed the forged handles with envy. Once the electricity had gone, the unemployed artists who'd learned glassblowing, woodworking, and blacksmithing for the sake of their art had suddenly been in high demand; there weren't enough of them to go around.

"Y'all have any trouble?"

"Clear the whole way." She was grateful. Being this close to DC itched like a target between her shoulder blades. "See much activity?"

"Not in the winter." He paused. "Usually."

She heard something in his voice that almost made her ask what he meant, but forgot her question when she slipped through the doors. The heavy smell of wood, hay, and horses assaulted her. Holes in the roof, covered inside and out with heavy metal grating, let in a trickle of day light. The rest of the space was illuminated by oil lanterns, which gave off their own particular odor. Most of the store's shelving had been converted into sleeping quarters; heavy blankets and cloth covered the sides to give the illusion of privacy. Rumor was that the IKEA further north still had most of its furniture, which was a nearly unimaginable luxury.

"We got sweet tea." He gestured with one hand.

"Thanks." She managed a smile. Even the Chitauri couldn't squash the last bastion of Southern hospitality. "What's your name?"

"Folks call me Red."

She couldn't see any obvious reason for the nickname but didn't press. Communities like this, especially those in the backyard of a Chitauri compound, tended to be close knit and suspicious of strangers. In the early days, there had been plenty of traitors willing to trade their loyalty to the Chituari, either out of fear or the mistaken belief that it might spare them a worse fate. It was rare now, since the remaining humans had very little to offer that the Chitauri wanted, but the psychological scars ran deep. 

Red led her to a table with several older men and women gathered around it. They all looked as though it had been awhile since they'd seen a hot shower and good meal. One of the men had scars cutting across his scalp, his thin hair in wispy patches, and another scar down the back of his neck. The scars were inhumanly straight and neat. _Chitauri_ , she thought and tried not to stare. Much of the Chitauri's technological dependence came from the fact that they physically embedded parts of it into their bodies, and when one of the human slaves managed to escape, they told tales of wild experimentation as the Chitauri tried to find ways to improve their captives. The group eyed her warily, but not unkindly. They were gathered around an old map of the mid-Atlantic area. She glanced over the markings on the map, unable to discern their meanings.

An older woman with iron gray in her black hair nodded a greeting. "Always good to see a face from the south. How's Richmond?"

"Winter's been mild this year. Good for the crops." She wondered if the mild winter meant the Chitauri had begun to move further south. There were rows of Xs on the map forming concentric rings around DC. She resisted the urge to ask. This wasn't her garrison and she wasn't responsible for these people. "I'm looking for medicine. Heard there was still some here."

The woman nodded again. "Depends on what you need. Ain't got much in the way of painkillers, but they've still got some up at Bethesda and we do trade with them. Once a month at least."

Sharon lowered her voice. "Antibiotics. Even something basic will do." There was a weighted look passed among the group. She kept her expression neutral. They probably wouldn't try to gouge her; they looked like good people. She was more worried they simply wouldn't be able to part with any of their stores.

Eventually, the man to her left heaved a sigh. He spread his fingers over the map, tracing the lines of the Potomac River. "They've done something to the water. Poisoned it, put something in it, could be just by accident. We don't know. Potomac was first, but we think got a case out of the Rappahannock. Don't know what it is but we know it responds to antibiotics. There's still a lab up in Quantico has most of their equipment intact from teaching forensics for the FBI, they've been looking at it."

Her stomach churned, thinking of the water she'd gathered from a small stream not too far south. She watched his fingers trace the river line down to the Chesapeake Bay. "Has it reached the Bay?"

"If it hasn't, it's only a matter of time. Don't know what'll happen when it reaches the Atlantic. Could poison the whole world, given enough time." He sighed again and shook his head. "We got set up to make our own penicillin, so we got that to give you. But if we don't figure this out, get ahead of it somehow, all the antibiotics we got won't be much good."

Frowning, she reoriented her thoughts. She'd come expecting to bargain, maybe even beg, for a commodity they seemed willing to give her, and instead, she'd found a game changer. She stared at a string of faded letters on the map; _Quantico_. It could be a biological agent or simply a byproduct, run off from the Chitauri compound and their alien biology. They were afraid, she realized, keeping her gaze on the map rather than see it in their faces. Every one of them had lived through the weeks of Chitauri raiding parties leveling buildings and leaving craters in suburban neighborhoods. She knew everyone at the table had lost friends and family, probably buried their loved ones themselves if they'd had the luxury of time and enough left intact to bury. What she felt rolling off of them now was a different kind of fear. A fear of what they couldn't see, what they didn't know, as thought the Chitauri had found a way to sneak, invisible, through their back door.

"I brought trade for the medicine," she began thoughtfully. "But I'm getting the feeling you need something else from me."

"Happy to take your trade, give you a fair price on the penicillin and a warm bed for the night."

Her back ached at the thought of sleeping in a real bed. "What do you need?"

The woman drew a line from the Rappahannock to Quantico. "We've got to know if it's the same thing they saw up north. Need to get a sample of the water to Quantico for testing. With this winter, the Chitauri haven't gone quiet like they usually do."

"You want me to go to Quantico," she asked, her disbelief loud in the relative quiet.

The woman met her eyes steadily. "Poe says you were SHIELD before the Fall. Says you can handle yourself. We ain't gonna send you empty handed. There just ain't enough of us here able-bodied that we can spare to do it."

Pieces that had been worrying at the back of her mind clicked into place, the first being why Poe had chosen her to travel when there were others who made the journey every few weeks. She'd thought he meant to give her experience, get her used to the route, and she was familiar with the area. But she hadn't realized it was her history with Quantico itself that had been important. She wondered why he hadn't told her the truth. It wasn't as though she would've turned him down. Maybe he already knew about the tainted water and was trying to keep the information quiet until they knew more. Slowly, she nodded, then pulled off her pack and settled it on the table.

"Do you have anyone going south soon?" She dug through the pack for the bundled cloth containing the batteries. "This is for the penicillin and they need it soon as they can get it." She didn't mention the fact that heading north into Chitauri territory might mean she never returned to Richmond at all. 

"We'll send someone down the way tonight with as much as you need."

"Anything other than a hunting rifles I could take with me?" She allowed herself a small smile. "I was top of my class in marksmanship."

The man finally gave her a wide, genuine smile. "This ain't your birthday, I don't suppose? 'Cause it's about to feel like it is."

He led her to another area of the old Lowes. Her heart thudded against her ribs when she saw an entire section of shelving laid out with firearms and ammunition. Everything from rifles to handguns, some she hadn't seen since SHIELD. Her hand went immediately to a FNX-45 tactical the color of the desert and a thrill went through her at the solid weight of it in her hand. She looked it over, searching for scratches, dings, or water stains, but found nothing to indicate it was in anything but excellent condition. Even the sight was intact and in good condition.

He dropped a box of ammo on the shelf in front of her. "Might not need it but it's best to be prepared."

"Agreed," she said absently, still running her fingers over the gun.

"Rest up, get some food in you. Fog's mostly burned off now but it'll settle in again come morning, give you a bit of cover." He watched her quietly until she noticed, then smiled. "I used to drive a bus, you know. Before. Local transit bus. Never fired a gun in my life, never slaughtered a chicken, nothing like that. Guess we're all changed, one way or another."

She was used to hearing stories. Oftentimes, the people she met were lonely and starved for companionship. Taking the box of ammo, she tucked it and the gun into her pack, turning away from the others. She could spare a few minutes to listen to him talk about driving a city bus if that's what he needed to feel better about asking her to walk into Chitauri territory with nothing more than an automatic pistol. Her stomach rumbled a quiet reminder that she hadn't eaten anything since her meal of hard tack and jerky the night before. Whether he heard it, she didn't know, but he motioned for her to follow after him again.

He spoke unhurriedly as he walked and picked at bits of dirt on his hands. "Chitauri took most of the young folk. Get more work out of them that way, I suppose. Mostly kids and old folk like me left behind, those of us knew we couldn't run too far and chose to dig in instead. They've left us alone a good while." 

The smell of hay and horses grew stronger. She caught sight of an old dappled mare in what had been the garden section and heard the familiar squeal of a pig amidst the clucking of hens. They passed by the makeshift farmyard and kept going to a rear entrance, traversing the entire back of the store. A tunnel of plywood and two by fours led out of the Lowes. The smell of damp earth grew as the temperature dropped, only the plywood between her and the cool air outside. Less than a hundred yards away, the tunnel butted up against the back of another building and the man waved her inside.

"Used to be a vet clinic," he offered in explanation. "Best place we got for a doctor to work. Still got a few of those, thank the Lord."

There was a faint odor inside the building; she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. One of the long tables looked more like a chemistry lab, probably where they made their homegrown batches of penicillin. There were jars and bottles of murky water as well, each of them labeled with locations. She scanned down the row. They were water samples from nearby rivers and springs, with a large jug labeled _Potomac_ at the far end. None of the water looked bad; not bad enough to be considered poison. She suppressed a shiver. One of these bottles must be what they wanted her to carry to Quantico. To her surprise, the man didn't stop at the table. She had to hurry to catch up to him, coming into the adjoining room behind him and stopping short. The unfamiliar smell was stronger here.

A woman in what had once been a white lab coat was tending to a man with an ugly looking burn on his arm. She spared them a glance, not saying anything. There was only one other person in the room; a young boy, no more than ten, lying on a gurney with his eyes closed. At first, Sharon thought the boy must be dead, but she saw his chest rise in a slow, shallow breath. 

"It starts like the flu, lasts a few days," the man said softly. He moved to the side of the gurney and waited for her to come closer. Taking the boy's hand, he turned it over to show her the inside of his forearm. Blue veins were nearly black and the surrounding skin was a mottled purple, like an old bruise. "Coloring shows in the hands and feet first. If you catch it then, you can beat it, but if it gets into the chest, ain't much you can do. Once it does, only takes about 24 hours from start to finish."

Her throat felt tight. "How...how does it kill?"

"Near as we can tell," the doctor spoke suddenly, her voice weary. "It eats away the brain and spinal column. Probably causes nerve damage in the limbs as it spreads. Some who've survived say it's like a buzzing under their skin."

Sharon pulled her sweater tighter. "What about the animals?"

"Doesn't seem to affect 'em." The man shifted uncomfortably, not quite meeting her gaze. "That's why we're thinking the Chitauri did it on purpose."

"Why bother? It's not like we're winning. We're years away from mounting anything like an offensive strike, maybe decades, probably more." Chewing at her thumbnail was a terrible habit she'd kicked as a child but it came back when she was worried. A contagion, a biological weapon with alien origins, was the worst possible outcome. She felt the thin flame of hope she'd managed to keep alive during the invasion waver.

"Cows ain't no threat to them, now or in five hundred years," the man said pointedly.

"They've been experimenting on us. That they _are_ experimenting on us. This is just the next step." The doctor waved her patient out of the room and crossed to the table to scrub her hands in water from a large jug marked _clean_. "Whatever it is, you have to ingest it. It doesn't pass through the skin or mucous membranes. Maybe. We're just guessing here. Without the right equipment to study it and people to do it, we may not figure it out in time to do anything about it. The antibiotics work but we don't know why."

"Do you know how widespread it is?"

"We sent runners to Philly and Baltimore. Still waiting to hear back."

The memory of being able to communicate instantly across the globe was surreal. She pulled her arms tighter and didn't say anything as the man led her back through the clinic rooms to the plywood tunnel. None of them had given her their names and none had asked for hers. It felt like a terribly significant glitch in social custom, its meaning just out of reach of her understanding. Even the boy she'd met had given her a nickname instead of his real name - _Folks call me Red_ \- and it felt like a mask. 

Still puzzling over what she'd learned, she gladly accepted a bowl of hearty stew and plain biscuits. It was the best meal she'd had in weeks. Since she would be able to get a full night's rest that night, she offered to help out in any way she could for the remainder of the daylight hours. She brushed horses and fed the chickens, all the while lost in thought.

A worn twin size mattress was heavenly compared to the hard ground. She laid her sleeping bag out over it and crawled inside, pulling her pack beneath her head. The lights began to go out inside the old Lowes and conversation lulled, then fell away to the occasional snore. More used to sleeping with nothing but the night creatures for company, it took awhile for her to get used to the sounds of other human beings, but eventually the relative comfort and safety carried her away into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Crowing roused her in the early morning hours. She could hear others moving about to tend to the animals and start the day's work. For a few minutes, she pretended that she didn't have anywhere to go, that she was back in her Arlington apartment on a Saturday morning with not a care in the world other than drinking coffee and reading the paper. She tried not to dwell on the past, but it didn't always come easy.

The smell of brewing coffee finally coaxed her out of the sleeping bag. She brushed her hair out as well as she could with her fingers, then knotted it back up into a braid to keep it out of her face. There wouldn't be a bath or shower in her future, not until she found water she knew was safe. She rolled up the sleeping bag and reorganized the supplies in her pack, adding the ammo box and using the external straps to secure her knife and the gun where she could reach them quickly. The raven haired woman from the day before was waiting for her at the table where the maps were spread out; she had a small supply of food and a carefully wrapped jar of dirty brown water.

"Stay off the road if you can," the woman advised.

"Thought I'd stick to the old VRE tracks." She added the extra provisions and the sample of water to her pack. There had been a commuter train before the Fall and the tracks would lead her all the way to DC if she'd wanted, taking her through Quantico along the way. She doubted the trains had been used since the city was evacuated.

"You'll have plenty of cover that way. They're mostly overgrown now but still there. When the lookouts spot you, they'll guide you in the rest of the way. Ask for the Doctor. No names, just the Doctor. And we'll get that medicine down to Richmond soon as we can."

"Thank you." She was escorted solemnly out of the Lowes and pointed toward the river. All she had to do was follow the water and it would lead her straight to the old tracks. 

Thick fog wreathed through the trees and hugged tight to the ground; light from the new dawn seemed diffused into an ethereal mist that swallowed up the shadows. Her canteen, newly refilled, sloshed at her hip and she wondered despite herself if she could trust the water they'd given her. But those were paranoid thoughts she had little time to entertain if she wanted to reach Quantico by mid afternoon. She settled into a steady pace, one she could maintain for miles without overly exerting herself, and headed for the river. Birdsong began gradually, a few voices and calls here and there, growing to a steady flurry of sound and wings in the trees. Overhead, she heard the far off cries of migrating geese, maybe as confused as the rest of the wildlife by the unusually mild winter.

She'd always hoped that when - _if_ \- humanity died out, they'd at least leave the planet behind for the animals to reclaim, just as the dinosaurs had left it to the mammals. Maybe they still would. 

The train tracks were choked with weeds; if she hadn't known what she was looking for, she might've stumbled past them. Carefully, she followed them across the stone bridge over the river, plunging into the thick underbrush of the woods on the other side. Another year and the tracks would be completely concealed, like a memory the forest was determined to erase. She saw animal prints in the damp earth, mostly deer and dogs with occasional traces of gray squirrels and feral cats. It was peaceful as she walked and she could almost forget that she was carrying a potential bio-agent in her pack, along with a gun that would only give her a fighting chance, at best, if she ran into any Chitauri.

She wouldn't have chosen this fate, if she'd had a choice, but that wasn't the point of fate, so she let herself enjoy the peace and quiet as much as she could. It was a long walk to Quantico; if she jumped at every noise along the way, she'd arrive with her nerves wrung out and exhausted. And if the songbirds felt safe enough to sing, she was probably relatively safe as well.

Her passage was uneventful; through the forest, then the marsh and swampland where the water took on an ominous new significance, and finally into the ghost town that had once been Quantico. The sun had already passed midday and the fog had retreated into the darkest parts of the forest when she arrived. She scanned the various markings and graffiti covering walls of abandoned shops and buildings, noting the pieces that were meant to help guide travelers or warn them away. One of them, beside a painted skull, was a somber reminder that DC had fallen and was lost to them now. A brief flash of anger sent her pulse racing as she wondered what the Chituari had done to the city. Had they toppled the Washington Monument? Burned the Library of Congress? She wondered if anyone had ventured close enough to find out what was left.

A two-tone whistle caught her ear, the same as she'd heard outside the Lowes, and she answered back, waiting to be approached. It was a woman this time, carrying a gun and dressed in dark combat fatigues, her hair cut short; she looked every inch a former Marine.

"Carter?" She lowered the gun. "Jesus, is that you?"

"Vasquez?" Grinning, she moved in to wrap her arms around the woman in a tight embrace. "It's good to see you, Jules."

Julia Vasquez had been part of the same cohort through basic training. Although she'd eventually chosen a different path, opting for the Corps instead of SHIELD; they'd stayed in the area and kept in touch. She pulled away, lines crinkling around her eyes as she frowned. "What the hell are you doing wandering around this close to DC?"

"Long story. I'm here to see the Doctor." 

Julia's eyes narrowed, as though wondering where Sharon had heard that name, but she nodded briskly and turned back the way she'd come. "This way. Being out in the open gives me the creeps."

She took her cues from Julia, keeping close to the walls as they wound their way through the abandoned city. Defensible positions would've been easier to find on the old Marine Corps base and she wasn't surprised when Julia led her in that direction. She heard a handful more bird calls that might have been signals; Julia didn't react to any of them other than to change directions, which she might have intended to do anyway. It was already vastly different from the rag tag garrison in Richmond, where the roster was filled mostly with former school teachers and accountants, whereas Quantico would've naturally sheltered anyone from the Marines to the National Security Agency. She felt a mix of envy and nostalgia and excitement all at once; she'd been part of this world once upon a time. Not far from here, the SHIELD Academy had been her old stomping grounds.

After a half mile, they dropped down into a utility tunnel; the miles of fiber optics and copper wire nearly useless in a post-digital world. A fraction of the tension in Julia's stiff posture eased, no doubt glad to have the cover of being underground. A million questions buzzed through Sharon's mind. How many were in Quantico? When had they last seen a Chitauri? Did they have contact with other cities or the rest of the world? She held her tongue, instead listening for every sound beyond the scuff and fall of their boots on the concrete; questions could wait until they were safe. 

The utility tunnel was part of a larger maze. Sections of wall had been removed, possibly to join tunnels together and gain additional access or to provide defensible areas to fall back if pursued. Every so often, she caught a quick gleam of eyes in the dark corners before the local residents, mostly rats, darted off again. Cryptic marks on the walls at each junction or intersection meant nothing to her, but Julia barely glanced at them. 

"I have a water sample," she said finally. "From Fredericksburg. They think it's the same contagion as the Potomac."

A visible shiver passed through Julia's lean frame. She paused at an intersection, then chose the right hand tunnel. "We're not gonna beat them. Not if they can kill us off easy like that. Whatever it is. All we can do is run and the further we run, the more they destroy. You wouldn't believe the water up north." She stopped again, fists clenched at her sides. "Used to be you could see straight down, fifty feet or more. Potomac's a bitch of a river, she'll take you just a sure as the Atlantic. But now? She's poison and it's those bastards who did it. They'll poison every drop of water on this planet if it gets them what they want."

"What do they want?"

"God only knows, Carter. If God's still paying attention."

"Hey." Sharon reached out to catch Julia's arm and, for the first time, she looked for the crucifix that had always been a feature around Julia's neck; it wasn't there. "Don't lose hope. We the People...we'll survive, you know? We'll get through this."

Julia smiled with one corner of her mouth. "Just want my river back."

She nodded in understanding. There were a lot of things she wanted back: Starbucks, WiFi, and her country were in her top five, not necessarily in that order. Unable to think of anything else to say, she followed after Julia and tried not to consider the human race facing extinction. Maybe another part of the world had discovered the same contagion; maybe they'd figured out how to stop it. She knew people had to be working to rebuild communications across the globe. As far as she knew, the satellites were still up there, the cellphone towers were still standing, it just a matter of finding a way to use them that wouldn't catch the Chitauir's attention. Humans were resourceful; someone would find a way.

Eventually, Julia led her to a bunker that had been converted into a bunkhouse, an oil lamp the only source of light, and directed her to a cot to rest from the long walk north. She handed over the water sample and sunk gratefully down, taking the time to eat and drink as well as get off of her feet. Shucking off the boots, she massaged her arches and toes until the tension from repeated compression began to ease.

Her mission was complete; there was a strange sense of irony in that. Shaking her head at what her SHIELD recruit self had thought the future held - alien occupation of Earth certainly hadn't been in that picture - she stretched out on the cot with her pack beneath her head. Having a safe place to sleep was a luxury she didn't intend to pass up, even if it was only for a short nap. With her eyes closed, her sense of hearing seemed to go into overdrive, finding each tick of the cot and rustle of her worn clothes. Idly, she daydreamed about hot showers and long bubble baths, her mind drifting.

The end of the world was less Mad Max and a lot more walking and waiting than she'd thought it would be. Time seemed to move more slowly now, or maybe they were moving more slowly through time. She wondered if that was possible, if the Chitauri were so advanced that they could control time. If they were trying to make the human race extinct, a poison in the water seemed overly complicated. That it didn't affect the animals continued to prickle in the back of her mind; it felt significant, but she couldn't say why.

She wished her mind could simply hold still and allow her to take a nap in peace. She wasn't a chemist or biologist; she understood unconventional and biochemical weapons from a tactical standpoint only. Given a laboratory and a library, she might be able to figure out a few things, but invisible poison in the water might as well magic or evil spirits for all she could understand. She could develop a containment plan, craft a strategy to defend a stronghold; SHIELD had trained her to do all of that, but her Academy courses hadn't included how to defeat an enemy that could only be seen through a microscope.  
Turning to her side, she quieted those noisy thoughts with deep, steady breaths and eventually settled into a light sleep. 

It was dark when she woke. Her muscles were already tense, as though an alarm had sounded, and it took her mind time to catch up. Something had woken her. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck was on end. Centimeter by centimeter, she slipped her right hand between the cot and her pack, reaching for the handle of the hunting knife. Her eyes were near useless in the complete darkness and the silence felt like a trick. She'd taken off her boots. If it came to a fight, bare feet would leave her vulnerable and potentially unable to run. Slowly, she began to shift her limbs, leveraging her body weight a little bit at a time until she could drop her legs over the edge of the cot and sit up. The faintest squeak was loud in the still air. Feeling out with her toes, she caught the edges of her boots and reached down to pull them on, winding the laces with the ease of practice. With her feet planted, she eased her weight forward gradually into a squat position, then turned around with agonizing caution.

She knew the contents of her pack inside and out, even in pitch black, and retrieved the small tin of matches. She set the gun and the knife on the cot first, then eased the straps of the pack over one shoulder, waiting and listening intently before pulling on the second strap. The knife was cold against her skin when she tucked it into the waistband of her fatigues; the gun was heavy in her right hand. She felt the safety catch against the pad of her thumb and pushed it back.

No one was there to see her hand shake as she lit a single match. The small flame burst to life, casting the bunker into brief, golden illumination. She saw empty cots and the dark, gaping maws of the branching tunnels. There was no way she'd be able to find her way through the maze without Julia, but she started toward the tunnel she'd seen Julia take when she left. If something had happened, if something had gone wrong, that direction would take her toward answers and, possibly, danger. But this felt familiar; she'd trained for this. Creeping down a dark tunnel with a gun and a knife and her heart pounding inside her chest until it felt like it would burst clear through her skin. She burned through the first match, kept going another three steps, then lit another and quickly moved forward, memorizing as far ahead as the temporary circle of light would allow.

She felt lost and powerless in the dark, swallowing down what would've been a shaky call for help. Cold sweat itched between her shoulder blades. Bits of the concrete wall tugged at her hair like rough fingers. She resisted the urge to keep looking back over her shoulder.

At a large intersection of multiple tunnels, she held the match out and pivoted slowly as she tried to decide which way to go. The dark shape on the floor looked like just another shadow at first, but she realized with horror that it was a person slumped low against the wall. She hurried toward the crumpled form before her match burned down to her fingers. In the flickering light, she recognized the short dark hair and oval face.

"Jules? Jules. Come on." She set the gun down to press her fingers against Julia's neck and her stomach twisted. 

Julia's skin was cold; she'd been dead for awhile, maybe hours. Shivering, she tried to scan the ground for the water sample, wondering if Julia had even made it out of the tunnels. She couldn't see any sign of the bottle, broken or otherwise. The fire licked painfully at her fingers and she had to drop the match, already scrabbling for another one. She had to keep moving or she'd have to navigate the rest of the tunnels without any light at all. She wished she'd thought to look for the old oil lamp before stumbling into the tunnels; it was a rookie mistake. When the second match sprung to life, she saw Julia's hand clutched tight around something that caught the light and gleamed. Carefully, she tugged open Julia's stiff fingers; it was the silver crucifix she'd always worn, a gift from her grandmother. Her hands shook as she gingerly slipped the chain over Julia's neck. Maybe she'd be able to come back and bury her; maybe someone else would find her.

A sound, like hot air through a vent, caught her attention. She froze, feeling suddenly as though she wasn't alone in the tunnel. Feeling blindly for the gun, she rotated to the left. Her boots scraped against the concrete. Light from the match threw terrifying shadows up onto the wall and the outline of a large, bulky shape in front of her. The shape rolled forward, muted colors becoming visible, and she found herself staring up into the sickly yellow eyes of a Chitauri.

It roared down into her face with hot, strangely metallic smelling breath. She brought the gun up, hands shaking violently, and fired nearly point blank into its face. The muzzle flash was blinding and the sound of the gunshot rang out like a bell. She felt warm, wet droplets of Chitauri blood on her arm. The match was gone and firing the gun had left her blind and deafened. Frantic, she pushed herself toward the opposite wall, reaching out and forcing herself to jog down the tunnel with only her hand on the wall to guide her. Gradually, the ringing in her ears faded enough to realize she could hear other sounds echoing through the tunnels. Footsteps, metal against metal; she could hear grunting and the sharp, barking sounds of Chitauri. She pushed herself to run faster.

Harsh screaming and the whoosh of an enormous hand past the side of her face were the only warning she had of another attack. She fired blindly and the answering howl of pain from the Chitauri meant she'd hit her mark. The straps of her pack went tight around her shoulders, stopping her dead in her tracks as something immovable held onto her. She fought to slip out of the pack, grabbing her knife and slashing out into the darkness, hitting nothing but air. There was another roar to her right; she heard answering bellows further down the tunnel and knew she was surrounded. 

She pressed her back against the wall, palms sweating as she tried to determine where the Chitauri were. The one she'd encountered must've been wounded enough to hold back and wait for the others. One on one, she might have a chance, but against an entire raiding party, she was as good as dead. Grimly, she clenched her jaw and tried to slow her racing heart. If this was the end, she was going to take as many of them with her as she could. 

Blue and purple light came around the corner, followed by two Chitauri soldiers with glowing orbs bracketed to the chest plates of their body armor. She shot the first one through the orb, halving the light. For all she knew, the Chitauri could see in the dark, but if they couldn't, she wanted them as blind as she was. The Chitauri howled and the second one surged forward, blue light making its eyes look green. She put a bullet right between those eyes, dark blood bursting out from the back of its skull. 

The blue orb was still intact. Once she was certain it was dead, she crouched beside it, searching for a way to detach the orb. She might be able use it as a light to find her way out of the tunnel maze. Slick with sweat and shaking, her fingers fumbled and slipped over the metal edges, unable to find any mechanism to remove the embedded device. With her focus on the chest plate, she didn't hear the Chitauri behind her until it was too late. Pain lanced through the back of her skull and specks of bright light burst out behind her eyes. She collapsed, unable to get her limbs to move, and hoped it would at least be a quick death.

Consciousness came and went. 

She opened her eyes once to see the floor beneath her moving. Or, was she moving? Her vision blurred and the pounding pain in her head made it impossible to focus. The second time she came to, she could smell vomit and realized it was her own. She was lying against a cold metal floor, unable to move. There were sounds of Chitauri moving around her, but they were muffled and far away. 

They hadn't killed her. 

She tried to force her sluggish brain to work. That meant they had another purpose for her. She thought back to Julia and how there had been no signs of a struggle, no smell of blood, as though Julia had simply sat down and given up. _No_ , she told herself forcefully. Julia wouldn't have taken her own life, not even to avoid whatever fate the Chitauri had in mind. 

What mattered was that she was alive and she still had a chance. She clung to that hope as consciousness once again blinked out.

Later, she became aware of movement and thought she was being transported, but couldn't determine anything more. There were restraints; she could feel them against her arms and legs. And there might have been sunlight. The pain in her head had faded and she couldn't feel any other injuries that might indicate the Chitauri had attempted to graft any of their technology into her body; at least, they hadn't tried to do it yet. Maybe they couldn't do it in DC and were transporting her to begin the process. She should be hungry, but she wasn't. That must be something the Chitauri had done to her as well, though she doubted it was out of kindness. 

When she finally came awake with her mind clear instead of lost in a fog, she was in an enclosed space that reminded her of a tanning bed. She took stock of how she felt, mentally scanning down her body for new aches or pains before turning her attention to her surroundings. Lightweight clothing was tight over her chest and abdomen and loose around the legs; her arms and feet were bare. There was diffuse light coming from the sides, but she'd couldn't see any obvious source. Whatever was containing her felt smooth and slightly warm to the touch. The curved section above her came down to smooth seams that joined to the flat plate beneath it. There was no padding but the surface gave enough that she wasn't sore; either she hadn't been lying down long or it was made to ease the pressure on her joints. Twisting onto her right side, she felt out the seam for a latch or mechanism. As she turned, a cool brush against her neck startled her.

She felt out the shape of a thin metal band around her neck. There was a small gap in the front, just wide enough to slide her fingers through, and she realized with a rush of panic that it was fused to the back of her neck. She could feel the piece that met her skin and went through; the torc was directly joined to her spine. It tugged painfully at her skin when she tried to pull it away from her neck.

"Great," she muttered. "I'm stuck in a tin can and they put a collar on me. At least I'm not claustrophobic." 

More surprising than the torc around her neck was the realization that she was _clean_. The last time she'd felt this clean was before the Battle of New York. She was going to avoid thinking about how she might've been gotten clean. Other than the torc, she couldn't feel or see any surgical wounds so she hadn't been modified or cut open by the Chitauri. She wasn't restrained, not counting the strange holding pod, which she assumed would open from the outside when the Chitauri were ready to take her out. There was no reason to clean and collar her if they meant to kill her.

She explored the interior as much as she could. It was too narrow to bend her knees enough to reach past her thighs, but she couldn't see any obvious release mechanisms there either. Banging on the sides and shouting for them to let her out probably wouldn't do much good. 

A loud thunk was followed by a rush of air that smelled of metal and motor oil. One side of the pod began to split. She pushed back as far as could go, bracing herself to face another Chitauri. Yellow light poured in through the widening gap. She squinted, eyes watering. When she'd adjusted to the light, she looked up at tall woman with blue eyes and a prominent scar across her left cheek. Her blond hair had been shorn on the sides, giving her a shaggy Mohawk.

She reached out a hand. "I'd say welcome, but this isn't exactly the Ritz."

Sharon took the offered hand and swung her legs over the edge. There was a bank of similar pods along one side of the room. From the outside, they looked eerily like coffins. Some were open and empty, others were still closed. A handful of women were standing or lounging on various storage crates painted with strange symbols on the sides. They didn't look unfriendly, but didn't look particularly friendly either. They all wore the same basic, serviceable outfit and silver torcs around their necks. 

"I'm Carol," the woman continued.

"Sharon."

"Where'd they pick you up?"

Sharon frowned, rubbing at her arms as she looked around the room. There was a large space beyond them and she could hear the pings of mechanical devices inside the walls. "Virginia. Quantico. Was everyone here...?"

"Snatched, just like you."

"Why? What do they need us for?"

With a casual shrug, Carol motioned for Sharon to follow. "Depends. Mostly, I think we're like pets to them."

"How long have you been here?"

"They grabbed me just after New York. How long has that been?"

"More than two years."

"That long already?" She didn't sound bothered by the time.

Beyond the room with the pods was a prison-like compound of connecting rooms. She saw more women in the same style of clothing. The largest open area was a cafeteria of some kind, though she couldn't be entirely certain what was food and what wasn't. Everything was in tones of gray, like the rendered background of a futuristic video game. She saw a few women with vacant, unseeing stares being led by others and shuffling their feet over the worn floor plates; they all had scarring around their torcs. 

Seeing where her gaze had gone, Carol leaned in closer. "They keep us here but they don't lock us in. Don't need to. These things around our necks are all they need."

"How do they work?"

"Mostly they just hurt like a bitch. Think of it as a shock collar for people. Step out of line, get shocked. Get shocked long and hard enough." She nodded meaningfully toward one of the vacant eyed women. "And before you ask, escape isn't an option."

"Why not?"

"You'd have to figure out how to get these things off first. Without killing yourself or ending up a quadriplegic. But say you figure that out. Then, there's this." Leading Sharon around a corner, she pressed her palm against an orange panel in the wall and the large metal plate in the center of the wall split at the middle and slid away. 

Sharon gaped, mouth falling open, and came forward to press her hand to the clear plate between her and the vast expanse of space. She'd never seen that many stars. There were planets or moons, she didn't know, and she realized that many of the smaller objects were moving; they were spaceships. She barely registered Carol moving to stand beside her.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"We're not on Earth," she whispered. 

Even her wildest speculation had never included not being on Earth any longer. Were they inside a giant spaceship? Or was this a moon? If this was where the Chitauri had come from, they might not even be on the same side of the galaxy as Earth. Her knees buckled and she sunk down onto the floor, turning to press her back against the wall and hug her knees tightly to her chest. Maybe she was still asleep. Maybe this was some sort of trick to mess with her mind, a hologram or hallucination. She breathed in, holding her breath for a count of four, then breathed out through her mouth. The panel closed above her, blocking off the view of the universe. 

"There you go," Carol said.

"We're in space." She took another breath. "And the Chitauri keep us like pets. And these collars can kill us. Anything else I need to know or can I just sit here for awhile?"

"Sit as long as you like."

"Do they beat us? Or...you know...anything like that."

"Not exactly." Carol's lips quirked in a half smile.

"They don't have some sort of sick fetish, do they?" She shuddered at the thought.

"Nah. Far as I can tell, they hatch out of eggs. Probably don't even know what sex is, let alone want to have it with any of us. They're pretty old-school for all their tech. Robots do most everything around here so they don't make us scrubs floors either." She propped her elbows on her knees and picked at her fingernails for a while. "It's more like an ant farm, I guess. They put us in here and see what we do. Some times they poke us if we get too boring."

Rubbing at her nose, Sharon sniffed again. She felt like crying although she couldn't quite put her finger on what was the most upsetting part. "We thought they might be experimenting on us...on Earth. Putting something in water."

"How is Earth," Carol asked, her voice so low it was nearly inaudible.

"Before the water...I thought we might have a chance, if we could just hold on a little longer." She thought of the glittering galaxies behind her back and how terribly close she was to the icy vacuum of space. She'd known the Chitauri were more advanced, but they obviously thought humanity was so little of a threat that they brought some of them home to give them baths and try teaching them tricks.

"Come on, kiddo. There's something that might cheer you up. It's about time for the Games."

"Games?" She didn't think she really wanted to know.

"You'll see."

Still numb with shock, she didn't protest when Carol pulled her to her feet and turned her in the direction of the far end of the compound. Others were already heading toward the cargo doors, more joined in as they walked. There were wide display screens mounted into the walls; she couldn't read any of the symbols or decipher the images. As she passed, one of the screens flickered, flashing static for an instant before a single English word appeared on the screen. _Hope._ She blinked and it was gone; she thought she might've imagined it. 

Beyond the doors was a long corridor and then stairs that seemed to stretch into infinity above her. She stayed close to Carol and noticed that many of the other women gave them a wide berth, a few of the women even seemed to be afraid of her. She filed that away to think about later. 

They left the stairs about the time Sharon's legs began to burn from climbing and funneled through another narrow corridor into a vast arena. A dozen Super Bowl games could've been played at the same time in the open center. The spectator seats were filled with Chitauri, all the way up and over the top of the arena in a gravity defying three dimensional seating arrangement. Ear splitting screeches and howling thundered against her ears, making her wince both at the noise and the memories of the dark tunnel in Quantico. To stave off what felt like a panic attack, she tried to focus on the arena floor, which appeared to be covered with an elaborate set of obstacles. At least one of the obstacles included an enormous scaled creature, like a fat, bulbous dragon, that bellowed furiously and snapped at anything within reach. They were close enough to one of the obstacles that she could see wickedly spinning blades moving back and forth along tracks set into the ground.

She tried to shout over the cheering. "What is this?"

"Teams have to make it through all of the obstacles," Carol yelled back. "Most of the time, they don't make it through the first round, but this team's lasted a lot longer than usual."

She could read between the lines of what Carol meant by the teams not making it and wondered if the stains she could see were rust on the metal or dried blood. Trying to see movement out in the arena, she held onto the top of the metal wall that separated them from the open space. It hit her mid chest and there was a widely spaced mesh stretching from the top of the wall to the bottom of the first seating level above them. She would've thought a species as advanced as the Chitauri would've outgrown the amusement of gladiators as entertainment. Maybe it was as Carol had said, an ant farm.

The cheering took on a definite pattern and rhythm, sending vibrations down through the metal supports. She could feel it resonate in her hands and breastbone. There was activity down at the far end but it was too far away to see what was going on. 

Carol nudged her with an elbow, directing her attention to a set of enormous doors not far from where they stood. As Sharon watched, the doors began to slide away and a group of men emerged; all wore similar torcs around their necks. She counted six of them and when the man leading them turned her direction, her breath caught in her throat. He wore a strange patchwork of Chitauri armor plates over similar clothes as the women were dressed in, and his blond hair was buzzed into a Marine regulation cut, but she would've known that face anywhere, even across the universe in the middle of a Chitauri stronghold. 

_That_ was Captain America.

She glanced at Carol and saw a knowing smile on her face. "Who'd you say you were again?"

The smile widened. "Captain Carol Danvers, United States Air Force." She tipped her head slightly. "At your service."

"Sharon Carter. SHIELD, Operations." She didn't see any surprise in Carol's expression, only a gleam of what might have been pleased confirmation. 

There was a flutter of excitement in her stomach. If Captain America had survived New York and he was here, it was possible the other Avengers were too. She saw Carol watching the environment around them with sharp eyes and she was suddenly, absolutely certain that Carol hadn't given up on escaping or defying the Chitauri at all. Despite her earlier words, she was lying in wait, knowing an opportunity would eventually come along.

Sharon turned her attention back to the arena and allowed herself a small smile. Maybe the glitch in the display screen really had been a sign; maybe there _was_ still hope for mankind after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Jeering and growling from the Chitauri was so familiar that Steve Rogers barely registered the sounds anymore. His attention was on the impossible torture devices the Chitauri had devised for them this time. It was just lucky the Chitauri weren't particularly imaginative; their solution to everything seemed to be throwing more of the same thing into the mix. Straightforward obstacles could usually be overcome with a little thinking ahead and the usual booby traps would keep them on their toes. Each obstacle had a hidden device that served as the prize. Activating the device would turn off the death traps and activating all of them meant they would all live to see another round of the cruel Games.

Steve narrowed his eyes as he looked over the latest arrangement of traps and contraptions. There were too many; they wouldn't be given enough time to go through them sequentially. He hated breaking up the team because they were always stronger together, but he didn't have a lot of options. Losing was a one-way ticket.

"Rumlow, you take Ward and Rollins. Stick to the right, don't take chances. If there's something you can't handle, wait for me. I'll find you." He met Rumlow's gaze and waited for a nod of acknowledgement. Brock Rumlow was a solid fighter, but Steve occasionally wondered if he'd sell his own grandmother to get an edge. "Wilson and Finn, you're with me. We'll take the left. Everyone, stay sharp and look out for each other. The only way we get through this is together." Each of the men nodded, their expressions serious.

At the far end of the arena would be the final challenge, only accessible once all of the other devices had been activated. The location was dictated by where the Chitauri's leaders would be watching the day's entertainment. They knew very little about the three imposing figures in the stands. Thanos, whatever he was, would be in a hovering throne made of rock and enjoyed watching them die more than anything. Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn't; Steve wasn't sure which he preferred. When Thanos wasn't there, a creature who might have been Chitauri, but might have been something else entirely, was left in command. Most of the men called him "fruit punch mouth", although they were very careful not to say it anywhere they could be overheard. At Mouthy's right hand was his Executioner, the monster who carried out Mouthy's punishments; those punishments seemed to occur more frequently when Thanos was absent.

The Executioner wore head to toe black armor and a black face mask that was simply one smooth, reflective shell. His arms were the only bare parts of him and his skin was ocean blue with dark, twisting and slanting lines that might have been carved or burned into his skin. No one had ever heard the Executioner speak, possibly because they never lived long enough to have a conversation. He was fast and lethal with a blade; Steve had never seen more than the flash of metal before it was over.

He rolled his shoulders, grateful the twinge of pain from dislocated shoulder he'd gotten in the last round was nearly gone. He had faith in his team. They worked well together and they'd come through eighteen rounds without losing anyone, which was a record. This would be nineteen; he wasn't about to lose any of his men now.

Below the stands, he saw human faces, all female, peering out through the security mesh and glanced sideways at Finn. One of the perks of winning in the Games, other than not being dead, was access to the women's compound. He'd never taken advantage of the arrangement because it wasn't right to treat the women as rewards, but he'd made a few friends. As long as the others never mistreated any of the women, he didn't try to stop them. Finn, in particular, had made a real connection with a striking brunette named Samantha and he'd be trying to find her in the crowd beneath the spectator stand. Keeping a separate containment of women was an awful lot of bother for the Chitauri to go to when he and his men were utterly expendable in the Games. If they died, another team would simply take their place in the next round. He wasn't sure if the Chitauri were so alien that he couldn't understand their motivations, or if they were basing their efforts on incomplete knowledge of the human race. 

He had plenty of time to think about his questions but not much in the way of getting answers. Beyond the grunts and growls, the Chitauri didn't have what could be considered speech. They communicated through their technology, much of it embedded in their flesh, and no longer needed a verbal language. He studied their symbols as much as he could and had a rudimentary understanding of basic terms like food, water, and the stars. The Chitauri symbol for human beings, as best as he could tell, was a strange lumping together of lines that resembled a lopsided pineapple. 

Cheering erupted at the far end of the arena, indicating the round was about to begin. The gigantic display screens peppered through the stands came to life, each showing a different angle of the arena. Adrenaline spiked his heart rate up a few notches. He had to keep his focus if he was going to get himself and his team through this alive.

"Alright," he began, turned around to put out his hand in a fist. "You all know what to do. Don't get cocky and don't get lazy." 

The others put their hands beside his, forming a circle. Rumlow grinned. "Time to give these bastards a show, boys."

Steve didn't have the stomach for macho posturing. He turned his attention back to the first obstacle rather that be part of Rumlow's caveman routine. If he needed it to work himself up to the fight ahead, Steve wasn't going to stop him. Rumlow was the kind who took chances and others usually paid the price, but he was resourceful and a solid fighter. 

"Doesn't look so bad," said a voice at his side.

Nodding, Steve pointed to a patch of the floor that looked freshly replaced; its metal gleamed a little more brightly than the surrounding panels. "Pressure switch maybe. Or a trap door."

Sam Wilson frowned. "If they're still on the exotic animals kick, could be more of those piranhas with legs."

At the memory of snapping mouths full of teeth, he pulled a face. That hadn't been his favorite round. For the most part, the Chitauri didn't play dirty, but they seemed to have phases of what they found entertaining to throw into the ring: more complicated mechanisms, dangerous animals, strange chemicals. For the last three rounds, they'd encountered weird and unusual animals, most of which wanted to eat them. The piranha creatures were the size of Golden Retrievers and had legs like a crocodile; they were fast and they were mean. 

"We'll take the ropes," he said. It would get them onto higher ground earlier in the game, which would help them see the layout of the arena as well as kept them out of reach if the pressure plate unleashed a horde of piranha creatures.

A rumble like an avalanche started up in the stands and the door behind them rolled closed with terrible finality. There would be no way out now, except through the deadly maze in front of them. He watched the Chitauri spectators grow increasingly excited, his fingers straying to the thin band of metal around his throat. It was a farce to run them through the maze like rats when the torcs could take them down in an instant. Humans were inconsequential to the Chitauri, reduced to entertainment value. It burned Steve, but he kept his anger in check. The Chitauri held all the cards and as long as they controlled the torcs, the humans would be prisoners of war. Even now, if he stayed too long by the entrance door, the torc would deliver a bolt of pure agony directly into his spine to encourage him to get moving. They were little better than insects under the Chitauri's boots, under Thanos' boots. He faced forward again. The real enemy was at the other end of the arena; the army around them was only sound and fury.

He swept his gaze over his team one more time, then nodded. As long as he was in the arena, he had just one mission; get his team out alive. "Let's go."

Wilson and Finn were off in an instant, arms and legs moving in the same rhythm as they raced toward the first obstacle on the left. They'd come as a team and it was one package deal Steve was grateful to have. Rumlow, leading Ward and Rollins, was faster and left a gap between him and the others soon enough. Steve kept an eye on them until they'd reached their first obstacle, navigating a set a swinging beams that could crush a man in an instant. He hurried to catch up. Wilson and Finn were already climbing up the long ropes hanging down from metal scaffolding. 

Usually ropes meant unstable footing. Steve wasn't surprised that he'd barely reached the top of his rope when the scaffolding began to shake and pieces of it fell away. More of the same scaffolding created narrow, rickety towers spaced irregularly across the field. A web of ropes across the top had gaping holes in places that would force them to use the unsteady structures beneath. Every Chitauri in the stands would be waiting for one of them to lose their footing and fall to their deaths. 

They'd have to get used to disappointment.

He wrenched the rope he'd used to climb free of the base and began wrapping it around his shoulder to carry it. Gripping the rope firmly, he took a running leap from the platform and landed on the nearest island structure. It began to shift and buckle under his weight. He'd only needed it to last a moment though and was already leaping to the next, going from island to island until he could reach the first gap in the webbing ahead of the others. It didn't take long to loop the rope through one side and stretch it to the other, ensuring that Wilson and Finn had a way to cross the gap without having to traverse the shaky platform below. Steve was already looking forward, plotting out the next leg of his path through the steel and rope jungle. Across the arena, he saw that the swinging beams led into an enclosed space, which meant Rumlow and the others would be facing an animal obstacle while they descended to dodge a field of spinning blades. 

"Here," Wilson panted heavily as he handed over another length of rope. "Thought you might want this."

He slung the rope over his head before swinging out into the gap, going across the rope hand over hand. Sure enough, the platform beneath them trembled every time their boots touched and he was only halfway across before it crumbled away. He could feel the sway of the two men's weight behind him and knew they were still hanging on. 

Repeating his strategy of leap frogging over the islands and circling back, he strung the second rope through another gap ahead of the others. That left the final gap between the last island and the exit platform. Jumping the gap would be a stretch even for him. He swung up through the webbing, hooking his knees over a stretch of cord to hang down like a bat, and twisted around in search of an alternative route. They hadn't found the deactivation device yet either, which meant the Chitauri had probably chosen a particularly sadistic location to hide it.

A surge in ambient noise level captured his attention. Rumlow and the others barreled out of the swinging beam range and headed for the next obstacle. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

When he twisted around to check on Wilson and Finn's progress, the center section of the island behind him caught his eye. For some reason, it was reinforced and looked considerably more stable than the others. That could only mean one thing. He swung back up to get a grip on the webbing and started in that direction, treating the webbing like monkey bars on a playground. Once he was near enough to the island, he gathered momentum with a few pendulum swings, letting go an instant before the forward apex of the swing. Falling felt weightless except for the lurching of his stomach. He caught one of the island struts as he fell; everything from his fingers to his shoulders screamed at the sudden stop. The tower shuddered but held.

He made a slow circle around the island to peer through the gaps in the supports. Criss-crossing bars on the inside concealed much of the space, but he caught sight of a smooth cylinder topped with the single blue panel. He'd found the deactivation device. Dropping down to the next set of struts, he found a gap that was wide enough for his shoulders. He had to contort his body, moving an inch at time and reaching inside to grab for a handhold. Metal dug into his shoulder as he pulled his legs through, nearly all of his weight bearing down on a couple square inches of skin. 

The rest was an inchworm crawl downwards, using his legs and shoulders and what few handholds he could find to shimmy toward the panel. Sweat dripped down from his temples, occasionally stinging his eyes, and soaked his hair. Finally, he was within arm's length. He held his breath as he reached out and planted his hand against the panel; blue light pulsed around his hand. Above him, he heard a whoop of triumph from Wilson. Climbing back up proved easier, if claustrophobic, and he wiggled out of a gap near the top of the tower. Wilson and Finn were already standing on the exit platform, a narrow metal pathway jutting out through the last gap. That was a piece of luck he wasn't going to question. He leapt from the top of the tower and began to make his way across the webbing. By the time he swung down onto the pathway, his fingers were raw from hanging onto the ropes. 

Wilson clapped him on the back when he reached them. "Thanks, man. Otherwise, you were gonna have to throw us across that gap."

"Thank me when it's over."

The climb down was uneventful. They heard roaring from the enclosed space where Rumlow and the others were facing their second obstacle. Ahead of them was a stretch of flat plates with deep grooves; each groove marked the track of a spinning blade as tall as a man. Between the tracks was enough space for them to stand or walk and they'd have to wind their way through them without ending up sliced in half.

"Table saws of doom," Wilson said under his breath. "Didn't we do this five rounds ago?"

"The buzz cut was good look for Ward," Finn answered with a grin.

"Focus," Steve reminded them. They had done this obstacle before, but that only meant the Chitauri would've come up with a way to make it more interesting. "Stick close, we'll go one track at a time."

Each pass of a blade stirred up enough wind to tug at them and they had to fight not to sway forward into its wake. The tracks themselves were roughly three feet wide, which was easy enough to jump across. They made it across the first two tracks when they discovered the surprise element. Following in the path of the blades, the tracks began to light up with bursts of fire. The blasts more than halved the time and area they had to cross the track, which forced them to go one at a time. Heat from the flames transferred to the metal and they had to keep moving not to get burned. The last one across was all but guaranteed to be singed so he forced the others to go ahead, ignoring the gusts of hot air and the smell of burnt hair. His boots skidded on the metal panels; the tread was beginning to melt.

With two tracks left to go, they saw the deactivation button near the exit. Steve nearly groaned. He had patches of burned armor, fabric, and skin over his arms and legs. They were all drenched with sweat and would be going into the third obstacle dehydrated. He saw burn blisters on Wilson and Finn as well. No doubt, Rumlow and the others would be in bad shape too.

He tried to reassure them. "We're almost through."

Wilson nodded. "Don't worry about us, Cap. We'll make it."

They made it over the next track with a few new burns. When Finn made his last jump, Steve saw the fabric of his clothes catch fire before the wall of flames obscured his view. He stood helplessly on the other side until the blade spun back the other direction and cleared the track for the precious few seconds he needed to make the jump. He looked down mid leap and saw the fire begin to ignite below him, heat making the air shimmer and waver like a mirage. A blast of heat hit his back as he landed. Wilson had already helped Finn to his feet again and they'd extinguished his clothes, but Steve could see angry red burns up the side of Finn's left leg. Finn's face was ashen; they all knew it might be a game ending wound.

Grimly, Steve pressed the button. Behind them, the blades screeched and clanged in the tracks as they came to stop. Flames died down, leaving heat and the smell of oil heavy in the air. 

When they emerged from the exit, Rumlow and the others were already there, licking their wounds. Steve took in gashes, scrapes, and what could only have been claw marks in armor and skin. Ward was noticeably limping and Rollins had lost two fingers from his right hand. Rumlow only nodded and kept wrapping Rollins' hand with strips torn from their clothes. 

Steve realized that the tone of the Chitauri audience had changed. They sounded angry now and restless with it. Wounds weren't enough entertainment for them; they wanted to see death and dismemberment. He was near enough to the end of the arena now that he could see Thanos on his throne and his enforcers to the right. He'd expected to face another obstacle. There were usually at least three obstacles before the final challenge. They'd gone through two and Rumlow's team had gone through two; he knew better than to ask Rumlow if he was certain he'd deactivated both of his obstacles. Uneasily, he watched the display panels, trying to catch an angle of the arena that would give him a clue. 

"Cap," Wilson began. He didn't have to finish.

The floor panels were shifting, jutting up to drive them in Thanos' direction. Each one was a ton of non-negotiable metal plate driven by hydraulics. They retreated from the rapidly changing floor as quickly as they could with their injuries. Steve had the sinking feeling they were being driven like animals into a pen. Whatever the Chitauri had planned for them, Thanos wanted a front row seat.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Wilson said.

Finn snorted. "You did not just say that."

"You're mad I beat you to it. We're even gonna see Vader this time. If Vader was blue underneath his armor, that is." With a smirk, Wilson leaned toward Steve. "There were these movies. You probably missed 'em, Cap."

"You've mentioned them a few times," Steve said dryly. He heard Finn laugh, but it sounded strained.

Floor panels continued to herd them into a rapidly decreasing area. The panels built a wall behind and around them, tall and absent of any handholds or footholds to climb them. They would be blocked from the view of the lower levels of spectators, making them rely on the display screens to know what was happening. The deliberate intimacy made Steve feel nauseous. He couldn't imagine Thanos had anything good planned for his team. Eventually the panels stopped moving and they stood looking up at the Titan on his throne.

Thanos didn't speak, merely lifted a single finger. At this side, the Executioner bowed his head slightly before he turned and started down the steps toward the arena floor.

Steve thought it was a trick of the light when the Executioner stepped out onto the floor and a pale shimmer spread from beneath his boot. It happened again with his second step and again with his third. Steve realized that he was altering the floor as he walked. Blue hands were empty at the Executioner's sides and he moved without any indication of hurry. Steve's toes tingled with a strange cold; he dismissed it as shock from his burns and kept his attention focused on the man in black approaching them. 

"What the hell," Wilson said suddenly. "Cap, look down."

Ice.

There was ice spreading up his legs in fingered layers. His feet were stuck fast to the floor. Thoughts scattered like marbles bouncing around his mind and he couldn't grab onto them or force them back where they should be. He had to get away from the ice. He tried to pull it away. Pieces broke away in his hands but more grew back as quickly as he could tear it apart. 

A sharp cry jerked him out of his trance in time to see Rollins impaled on a six foot long icicle that had grown impossibly out of the floor behind him. Rumlow went to him, struggling to pull him away from the glistening blade, but Rollins' eyes were already glassy and rolling back in his head. Ward took two steps toward the Executioner, then crumpled to his knees, hands clutching at the shards of ice embedded in his throat.

Thanos meant to have them all killed. 

Rage boiled up in Steve's stomach. They'd _won_ ; they'd beaten all of the challenges and their reward was to live. That had always been the deal before. It was unfair; it was wrong. He could see Thanos smiling on his throne. Redoubling his fight against the ice wrapping around his legs, he choked on a cry when Rumlow fell, bleeding out over the floor. They didn't stand a chance against Thanos' monster, not when he couldn't even lift a finger to help them.

A wordless exchange passed between Wilson and Finn before Wilson left his friend's side to come to Steve, frantically trying to help break the ice keeping Steve out of the fight. Unable to look away even as he smashed his fists down against the ice, trying to fracture it, Steve watched Finn square his shoulders. The burns up his leg likely made it agony to stand but Finn didn't waver as the Executioner bore down on him. Steve fought harder against the ice.

"Get out of here," he hissed. 

Wilson shook his head. "Where we gonna go?"

" _Sam_." He'd meant to plead with him to take Finn and get behind him, force the Executioner to take Steve instead, but Finn took a swing at the monster. 

Finn's fist connected solidly with the smooth black mask, but did nothing more than turn it to the side. He stumbled back. His whole body jerked and went rigid for a moment, then his shoulders slumped. As he sunk down to his knees, the Executioner pulled a slender dagger away, blood spraying out over ice and metal. Wilson screamed in rage and grief. He left Steve's side and dove for the Executioner, swinging wildly.

"Sam, no!" Steve felt the ice around his right leg give and sloughed off fist sized chunks. With one leg free, he tore himself out of the pillar of ice.

The Executioner stood before him, holding the back of Wilson's neck by his torc. There was a terrible implacability in his faceless mask, as though he was no more than a machine carrying out orders. Steve met Wilson's eyes; he saw fear and regret. The Executioner drove the dagger into his back; Wilson convulsed and twisted, his lips turning bright with blood. With a twist of the knife, the Executioner dropped Wilson and tossed him carelessly aside. The mask turned toward Steve.

He didn't try to run as the Executioner stalked toward him like death incarnate. He was too stunned. His entire team was gone and the unfairness, the senselessness, of their deaths had left him as frozen as the ice. There was blood spatter over the smooth, reflective mask. Steve could see his own reflection, his eyes wide and his face contorted with rage. 

The Executioner stopped in front of him, blood dripping from the dagger in his hand. Curling patterns of ice glistened against blue skin; his fingernails were black. For the first time, Steve could see he had thick black hair, braided and segmented with thin metal bands at the end; it was mostly hidden by the heavy fabric that joined the featureless mask to the black armor over his shoulders and chest. He wasn't much taller than Steve, although he always loomed impossibly large in the stands above. In the background, Steve vaguely registered that the arena was shaking with the roaring of the Chitauri crowd. They were surging forward like sharks circling a wounded fish, driven into a frenzy by the bodies and blood already painting the arena floor. Steve felt his heart rate slow again, a strange peace settling over him; acceptance of his own death.

Standing still might have been what saved his life.

Silent and devoid of any signs of emotion, the Executioner turned away from Steve. Ice spread out with each of his footsteps, leaving a glistening layer of it over the floor.

Numb and exhausted, Steve sunk down to his knees. He fell forward, then crawled toward Wilson to feel for a pulse. Not that it would matter if he found one. He wouldn't be able to treat a wound like this without access to the Chitauri's technology and he doubted it would be granted. It was a reflex, a habit worn so deeply into him that he couldn't stop himself. He ached to feel Wilson's life slipping away. They'd been his team; they'd trusted him to lead them and he'd failed. Once again, he'd been _frozen in ice_.

He looked up at the retreating back of the Executioner. In that moment, he'd never hated anyone as much as he hated Thanos' black and blue monster.

Doors opened below Thanos' throne and Chitauri guards spilled out with energy weapons in their hands. They growled and spit at him, but he didn't move until they grabbed his arms and dragged him bodily from the arena. Burned skin tore on patches of rough metal grating they hauled him over, leaving streaks of blood. They tossed him unceremoniously into the cell where they kept him between rounds. 

He stayed curled on his side on the floor for a long time, eyes squeezed tight against the images of his dead teammates. He'd failed them, like he'd failed Bucky and the Avengers. Like he'd failed Earth the day the Chitauri came. He could feel the serum working to stitch up and repair his wounds and he hated it for keeping him alive. 

Eventually his body's needs forced him up. Pressing a round button inset on the wall opened a small panel. Another button dispensed enough nutrient gel blocks to fill a metal bowl and clear water poured into a drinking tin. He took them both and made his way stiffly to the bed in the corner to eat. The gel blocks were tasteless but he wouldn't have been able to taste anything even if they weren't. He chewed mechanically and refilled both the bowl and cup twice more before his stomach quieted. The Chitauri never worried about rationing their food and water, there was no need when the torcs gave them complete control.

Briefly, he considered ripping his own torc out of his neck. At best, it would kill him instantly and at worse, it would leave him comatose and useless to the Chitauri. Giving up wasn't the answer, he knew that. But winning the Games wasn't an answer either. He'd beat them at their own game, playing by their rules, and they'd slaughtered his team for all his trouble. 

Under the dim yellow light, he stripped out of his clothes and armor to inspect his burns. Behind another panel in the opposite corner was what passed for a bathroom for the Chitauri. A basin with a drain inset in the wall served as a toilet. Showering or washing up felt like standing in a car wash. The jets of steam stung his burns, making his eyes water and forcing a low whine of pain from his throat. His muscles felt looser afterward. He discarded the damaged and soiled clothing down a disposal bin. Another set of identical clothing was neatly folded in nearby compartment. 

They expected him to go on as though nothing had happened, to dress and eat and sleep without having lost his friends in the arena. Maybe Chitauri were so indistinct and plentiful that they didn't form friendships or feel loss.

He settled on the bed, back against the wall and his elbows on his knees. How long had it been since New York? It felt like a lifetime had passed since he'd woken up in one of the Chitauri stasis pods with a torc around his neck; all of his injuries from the battle already healed and faded. He hadn't seen any clocks or calendars that he could read and he had no way of knowing how long he'd been in stasis. At least seventy-eight weeks; he knew that much. Turning his right hand up, he traced the thin, straight scar over the inside of his forearm. It would be gone in another twenty four hours and that would mark three days. Then he'd have to make another cut; his only way to measure time was the response of his own body and the serum's accelerated healing.

Seventy-eight weeks. 

It had been thirty-seven weeks since he'd pulled Sam Wilson and Riley Finn from their stasis pods. They'd been captured together and they'd brought news of the Chitauri's rule on Earth, of the devastation left behind and the collapse of civilization. No one had answers as to how the Chitauri chose their victims, other than noticing they preferentially chose soldiers and those who fought back; better fodder for their Games. What the Chitauri did with the human dead was also a mystery. He didn't want to think about the possibilities. Instead, he thought about why the Executioner hadn't killed him. There was little point in leaving him alive amidst the ruins of his team. The Chitauri didn't have any concept of mercy or compassion.

He frowned as he remembered the angry howling of the Chitauri; they'd wanted them to fail, wanted them to die. It could have been simple boredom and bloodlust. That didn't seem to fit, like a puzzle piece that was close to the correct shape, but not the right piece. The obstacles hadn't been particularly harder than usual; why not make the challenges impossible and watch them fail? Caging them at the end and sending in the Executioner wasn't about watching them fail, it was a show of power. And maybe it hadn't been meant for the Chitauri audience at all. Maybe Thanos had wanted to make it clear that even if they won, they were still under his thumb; a reminder that they lived and died by his will alone.

The only reason to _make_ that statement was if they were a threat.

It was such a crazy idea that he retraced his logic a dozen times before he could admit to himself it was a viable possibility. A spark of hope reignited, if only the barest of a spark. 

Everything around him had convinced him that the Chitauri didn't see any of the humans as a threat and maybe they didn't. He didn't think they were particularly bright or capable of a great deal of deep thought. But this hadn't been the Chitauri, it had been Thanos who'd changed the game and he knew Thanos wasn't stupid. He wracked his brain for the barest glimpse of a reason Thanos might consider the humans a threat and came up with nothing, but that didn't matter. He didn't need to know _why_ Thanos thought they were a threat, only that he did. That meant there was a way to fight back, maybe even to win; he simply had to keep trying until he found it.

When he'd given himself a headache trying to understand an alien psyche, he stretched out on the bed and waited for sleep to come. It could be days before the Chitauri came to let him out again or allowed him to join the rest of the prisoners.

They'd tried to break him, to demoralize him and make him give up. He set his jaw, staring up at the ceiling. They didn't know anything about him or about mankind; giving up would mean his team died in vain and he would never allow that to happen. They'd try to force him to play in their Games again, with a new team, and he had to find a way to turn that against them. Thanos was proud; he might be able to use that to his advantage. And every day, he learned more about how their technology worked. He was no Tony Stark, but eventually he'd stumble onto something useful.

After it felt like he'd been staring at the ceiling for hours, he abandoned his quest for sleep and reached under the bed for the shard of metal sheeting he used to mark the days. The tip was as sharp as any blade. Rather than his arm, he painstakingly carved the names of each of his fallen team members into the metal panel above his bed. It would serve as a reminder and he could imagine them watching over him from wherever good soldiers went after they died.

He trailed his fingers over _Sam Wilson_ , wishing he'd had the chance to know him before the Chitauri came to Earth and that they'd been able to watch all of the movies he'd talked about constantly. He smiled in spite of the heavy weight of grief knotted tight in his chest. 

Not forgotten, he silently promised. 

There was always _hope_.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanos' throne hung in the air. Behind him, lines of broken rock were illuminated by the dying crimson of what had once been the molten core of a planet. It had been torn apart and its remains stretched out as far as the eye could see. There was beauty in the destruction, frozen in time as it was. Both the throne itself and the platform below had been carved from the heart of the doomed planet. The Other stood silently in his black robes and ceremonial armor. Although he said nothing and his face was partially covered beneath the cowl of his robes, giving away nothing, the creature had an aura of malicious intent.

At the furthest side of the throne room, if it could be called a room at all, were Thanos' deadly daughters. Seated on rocky outcroppings, they spoke little and saw everything. Thanos indulged them, allowing them to roam freely through the Chitauri population. There was one, newly brought into to fold, whose familiar face tugged at half-buried memories of another life. He knew this was impossible; he'd had no life before Thanos.

"You defied me." The Mad Titan's voice filled the space with his indomitable will. It crept into each crack and crevice and its gnawing teeth wormed under the skin of all who stood before him.

Bowing his head, the Executioner made no attempt to disagree. His orders had been to eliminate the human warriors and he had failed. He had spared _one_ ; the Captain; the Golden Son of Earth. The others had fallen, weak and crying out against his superior strength, but his hand had stayed when it came to the Soldier.

He didn't know why.

A memory; a dream; a moment out of time. 

The Other slithered forward like a serpent made of curling smoke, reaching out a six-fingered hand. "Insolence will not be tolerated."

Fire erupted down the length of his spine, radiating out from the band of metal around his throat. He would have screamed behind the shell of his mask, but his voice had been taken from him long ago. This was his punishment and his salvation. This burning beneath his skin; the fire that would purge the darkness and the ice from his blood.

"Wait." Thanos stood on his great stone throne.

The pain began to fade.

"Perhaps I misunderstood your intentions." At his words, the Other retreated. "This man is a symbol. To the rest of the vermin. Defeat makes him a martyr. His spirit must be broken or corrupted for there to be true victory." Thanos smiled down on him, pleased.

He nodded slowly. He could not disagree. Perhaps this _was_ why he'd turned away from the man and left him alive. It could only be as Thanos said because Thanos could not be questioned.

"You will not disobey me again."

Again, he nodded. He existed only to serve Thanos. There had been nothing before Thanos and there was no greater purpose than to serve Him.

The Other led him into the darkness where Thanos could not see. Only then did the Other give him punishment he deserved for his willful defiance. Through pain there would be redemption and he bore it silently. Drops of blood leaked from the edges of his mask and his whole body shook from the fire within. Still, he accepted what wisdom the Other chose to give him and prayed it would forge him into a worthy tool for Him.

He dreamed of red stripes and white stars and an eternal summer.

When he woke again, still lying where the Other had seen fit to leave him, he saw Thanos' youngest daughter watching him. Her natural eye was a cold blue-gray in color, contrasting against the dull red glow of her other, cybernetic eye. Like her sister Nebula, she had a robotic arm; one of Thanos' many gifts of improvement. Through his mask, her skin was pale rose and the red of her armor was heavy, like blood over fresh snow. He didn't know where he'd seen snow to know this.  
He waited, thinking she may have an additional lesson for him, beyond the pain already given by the Other. But she said nothing and eventually turned away, leaving him alone.

There was a tremor in his hand when he reached out to pull himself to his feet. He hid it, ashamed by the weakness of his body. Weakness did not serve Him. 

Within the small quarters where he slept, he carefully unhooked the delicate black mail from the edges of his mask and gently worked his thick braids clear of the fabric. The mask itself could not be removed without a Separator. It was fused to his skull in the same fashion as the torc around his neck bound directly into one of his vertebrae. He undid the buckles of his chest plate to set it aside, peeling the mail back to expose the small electronic panel surgically embedded over his heart. With a light twist, he opened the nutrient port and connected his body to one of the various source tubes located behind one of the wall panels. There was enough length in the tubing for him to sit on a nearby chair while he waited.

He remembered a burst of flavor as he bit into an apple. The memory itself seemed to reside in his teeth and his tongue, in the ghost of an ache in his jaw each time he fed himself. 

There were no apples here. The Chitauri had long since perfected the ability to synthesize all of their required nutrients from fundamental chemical building blocks and had no need to raise crops. They fed as he did, through ports that delivered the nutrient compound directly into their blood stream. Fragile human bodies had not accepted the alterations that would've allowed them to feed in the same way; hundreds had died before the Chitauri abandoned their attempts. The world the humans came from was primitive. 

He remembered clear blue sky and a spire reaching to the heavens.

Those memories were lies, of course. They were tricks played on him by his weak mind. Soon enough, the Other would root them all out and he would be free to serve Him without weakness. He had failed Thanos before, though he remembered little of it; the Other had granted him the forgiveness of burning away those memories. 

Smears of dried blood on his skin itched. He scratched at a drop on the back of his left hand, picking it away from the raised patterning of his flesh. For a moment, he was surprised to see and feel the markings, believing irrationally that his skin should have been smooth and pale. The moment passed quickly and he resumed scratching. Once he fed, he would cleanse himself and remove the last vestiges of blood. Nutrients would cease the tremors in his hands; rest would ease the feeling of strangeness of his own skin and the persistent delusions of his mind.

Still, there was a sense of familiarity the man's fearless defiance. Other mortal men called him _Captain_. As Thanos said, the man was important to Midgard. 

_Midgard_. 

The word bubbled up from hazy memories of his previous life - he'd had no life before Thanos - and popped against the surface of his consciousness. It was the home of the mortals, before the Chitauri had conquered them, and - he lived only to serve Him - it was called Earth, not Midgard. But the word resonated and clashed against the shadowed edges of his mind as though intent on teasing out more words like it to confuse him. 

He should seek out the Other to clear the temptation of his delusions. Shivering, he traced his fingertips lightly over the edge of his torc, thinking of the agony that would come if he did. In his weakness, he shied away. He would rest first. No doubt his mind was merely unsettled. These feelings and words would fade. 

When he'd taken his fill of nutrient solution, he disconnected the tube from his port and coiled it neatly within the wall panel. He stripped away the rest of his armor and clothing to step into the cleansing chamber. The steam was too hot for his liking; his blue skin flinched under each blast. Once he was cleansed, he laid down naked on the bed. The black mask made it difficult to sleep except on his back, though he slept little enough for that to irritate him. The lights dimmed automatically in the narrow space, sensing his location. 

His mind wandered, picking carefully through the thoughts that were too uncomfortable or too strange to look at closely. He would need to select new mortals for the Chitauri's games. There would be resistance on the Captain's part; the loss of his team was an emotional blow and mortals were fragile creatures ruled by sentiment. 

A question struck him and he raised his arms to stare at the lines in his skin. He was not a mortal and he was not Chitauri, but he could find no word or name for himself. He'd seen no others like him.

What manner of creature _was_ he?

That single question triggered a cascade of simple, irrefutable logic. If he wasn't Chitauri, then he'd been brought here from another place. If he wasn't mortal, then he hadn't come from Earth. He remembered no other place, no home where Thanos and his army must have found him. Had he come here or had he been _taken_ , like the mortals? He wore a torc the same as the mortals; none of the Chitauri wore torcs. The torcs were means of control and gaining submission and Thanos had no need to control the Chitauri as he did the captured mortals. He felt along its edges, his thoughts now a whirling storm of doubts.

_He'd had no life before Thanos._

For as long as he could remember, he'd heard those words as a litany in his mind, but it no longer resembled his own voice. It was a _lie_. They'd taken his voice; they'd taken his _name_. His jaw ached and his tongue pressed hard against the back of his teeth. 

They'd taken him from a place with blue sky and apples.

Ice began to form at the center of his palms. It wrapped over his knuckles, curled down his fingers, and around his wrists. He willed it into a razor sharp blade extending several inches, then pulled it back and reformed it into a smooth globe against his palm. This wasn't Thanos' doing; the Titan hadn't given him this power as he'd given his daughters theirs. The ice came from deep within him and flowed out along the channels in his skin. Instinctively, he knew Thanos could not take this power from him. Golden light shimmered deep within the ice.

Thanos could not take the power, so he'd taken everything else; to ensure compliance; to render him obedient; to make him forget.

He banished the ice beneath his skin and let his arms fall to his sides. The exertion left him trembling against the bed. His mind was in shambles; he dug frantically for each lost memory, finding images and words that made no sense.

He had a _name_ and he was determined to find it.

**

A disembodied voice from nowhere greeted Sam Wilson when he blinked his eyes open. It didn't sound human. It didn't sound Chitauri either.

"Don't move. And don't scream."

He couldn't see anything, couldn't move, and he couldn't tell if he still had fingers and toes, or anything else for that matter. But he managed not to scream into the endless black around him. It wouldn't have been much of a scream anyway, since it felt like he was breathing through a long tube. At least he was breathing; he'd been pretty sure he wouldn't be doing that again.

"You're safe for now."

_Safe?_

His last memory was getting a ten inch dagger through his back and that hardly qualified as any kind of _safe_. It had gone straight through his right lung and come out the other side. Motherfucking _Vader_. He remembered the look on Steve Rogers' face; the horror and the guilt that he'd wanted to put to rest even if it took his last breath. None of this was Steve's fault.

"Who are you," he managed to whisper. His throat burned and his lips were more chapped than they'd ever been in his life.

There was a long silence and then the muffled, electronic voice answered. "A friend."

"Why aren't I dead?"

"The torc," the voice answered. "It does a hell of a lot more than make you feel like you're on fire when they want to punish you. A hell of a lot more. It's not Chitauri either. No way they could've come up with something like this on their own. They barely know how to use it."

"Who the hell _are_ you?" There was something familiar about the voice that tugged at his memory but never came clear.

"You don't need to worry about that. Let the nanobots do their job."

"The what?" He knew what the word _nanobot_ meant but he couldn't remember when or how he'd gotten any into his system. Thought he would've been smarter than that. Don't go taking nanobots from strangers was the first rule of intergalactic travel. 

Then he remembered watching Riley fall.

"Riley," he croaked. It might've been a question, might not.

Another pause. "I could only save one. I'm sorry."

He felt grief for a moment, bitter and intense, then his brain processed what the voice had said. "Cap?"

"He's alive. They let him live."

Sam swallowed. His throat felt a little bit less lined with broken glass this time. He knew Steve, knew how heavily he would carry the responsibility and the loss. Leaving Steve Rogers alive and surrounded by the dead bodies of his friends was a far worse punishment than death. But Steve was alive and he'd never stop fighting, Sam knew that too. As long as Steve's heart was beating, he'd find a way to beat these sons of bitches.

"I have to ask," he hesitated. "Since I can't see or feel anything. I've still got all my parts still, right?"

"Oh, sure," the voice answered quickly. "You're all there."

"Awesome." He tried to relax, which was surprisingly hard to do when he couldn't tell if he was tense or not. "What about you?" The silence stretched out long enough that he thought he'd offended the voice.

"I'm not. All here," it finally told him.

"Whatever there is of you, thank you. You've got a friend if you want one."

"Thanks, pal. Now take a deep breath and spend some time in Shangri-La. Or Brigadoon, if that's more your thing."

"Why?"

"I'm going to knock you out so the nanobots can finish repairing your lung."

Sam tried to nod and thought he managed a bit of movement in his neck. "I'm good with that."


	4. Chapter 4

Sharon sat by Carol's side, their shoulders pressed together and their backs against the unforgiving wall. She didn't need to speak to know what the other woman was thinking.

They'd seen good men die that day.

The atmosphere of women's compound had been somber since the Games. She watched, mystified, as the women collected scraps of fabric, sometimes tearing it from their own clothing. Piles of fabric shreds began to grow on the floor, five of them in total. When one of the older women determined they had enough, she sat cross legged on the floor and began to work the strips into a doll the size of a finger.

Other women sat near her, whispering prayers and softly singing hymns. She recognized a few, but many were unfamiliar. Every language and every religion that had come from Earth weaving together as the tiny dolls took shape. There was one for each man who'd died in the arena. When the woman finished the dolls, she laid them out on the floor and waited. A tall woman with brown hair pulled back into a severe ponytail was the first to reach forward and take one of the dolls. She bowed her head to the old woman, accepting a kiss on the forehead, before turning away and leaving with the doll.

They had no belongings, Sharon realized. Their clothing was provided and replaced at regular intervals, but there was simply nothing else in the compound they could call _theirs_. Those who died would leave nothing behind. Suddenly she understood the terrible loneliness of the dolls and what they meant. They wouldn't even get the chance to bury their dead.

How many dolls had they made? How many more would they make? 

She hugged her knees, not wanting to ask Carol what happened to the bodies. Her mind replayed what she'd seen on the display screens again and again until the image of Captain America's anguished face was burned into her memory. 

How could she believe in hope now? 

It had been so easy for the monster in black to cut them down. Most of the women called him the Angel of Death; Carol called him Lord Vader; many were afraid to speak of him at all. And Thanos, who they knew even less about, was rumored to be far more powerful. For the first time, she recognized the true fragility of Earth's position in the Cosmos. They were a small planet, a young planet, and they'd fallen to a far superior enemy. The Chitauri had swept the Avengers aside as if they were nothing and it was lucky mankind hadn't been wiped from existence entirely. 

"He won't give up," Carol said quietly. "And neither will we."

She looked around her at the women who'd been stolen and snatched from Earth and wondered what possible chance they had. "What does it matter?" 

"He'll need us."

Pushing off from the wall, Sharon stood up. All her life, she'd been told she had to wait for a man to chart the course and now, here, it was still a bitter pill to swallow. In the same moment, she felt overwhelming guilt at her resentment because Carol was talking about _Captain America_ and Sharon had grown up listening to his stories. She'd been raised to ask herself what Steve Rogers would do in any and every situation and then measure herself against that benchmark. But today she'd watched him fall to his knees, defeated, and she'd lost more than her faith.

Maybe this was natural selection. Maybe the human race had to give way to a superior species. Maybe they would warrant a footnote in the history of the universe; maybe not even that much.

She walked without seeing where she was going and found herself in an unfamiliar corridor. The human women were so little threat to the Chitauri that they were barely contained and minimally observed. If she tread too far into forbidden territory, the torc around her neck could be used to bring her in line. She ran her fingers along the curve of the metal. The others promised that she would soon be so used to it she wouldn't notice it was there at all.

She thought that might be worse than having it.

It took her a moment to realize the display screen in front of her was flashing an arrow directed to the left. Frowning, she shook her head to clear her thoughts and looked at the display again.

_Four seconds_

_Three seconds_

"What?" she whispered. Looking left, she saw the corridor was empty. The display continued to count down.

_RUN_

Before she could think better of following mysterious directions from a futuristic television screen, she took off down the corridor and ran until her lungs burned. At each intersection, another arrow would flash up on one of the screens ahead of her and she followed them down the rabbit hole.

The anonymous directions took her deeper into the Chitauri stronghold. There were times the display told her to _wait_ or _hide_ and she pressed herself into the darkest shadow she could find, holding her breath; watching and waiting for further direction. As she raced down corridor after corridor, she wondered if she was insane but, then again, she was on an alien spaceship far way from Earth and who was she to judge what was sane and what wasn't anymore.

Her destination was a landfill, if there was such a thing onboard a spaceship. There were endless rows of bins filled to the brim with scraps of every kind of material. More swung overhead in buckets that slid along tracks; heat from a furnace that smelted down scrap metal made the air heavy and her skin grew sticky with sweat. Everything was automated, controlled and monitored by the ship itself rather than relying on manual labor. She wandered among the refuge bins; the display screens were few and far between here so she was on her own. The mysterious GPS hadn't bothered to tell her why it was leading her here. A hint would've been nice, a picture would've been better.

She knew it when she saw it.

It took an hour of rearranging bits of metal and straining until her arms and back burned before she wrenched the solid disk from the refuse bin. She clutched it to her chest, breathing hard, and scurried away with a desperate hope burning inside her.

Once again, the display screens led her on.

This time, the messages led her to a narrow door. She hesitated, holding fast to the object in her arms, and then pressed the access panel beside the door. Metal whispered as the panel slid open to reveal a small living quarters. Inside, she saw a man sitting on the cot style bed and her heart stuck in her throat when he looked up at her. When she'd dreamed of meeting her childhood hero, this had hardly been the scenario.

"Who are you," he asked bluntly.

Unable to speak, she stepped through the doorway, jumping slightly when the door closed behind her. She held out the object like an offering, watching his face.

From the look on his face, she might have been holding a rattlesnake. "Where did you find this?" 

"In the garbage," she managed to squeak out.

He ran his fingers along the edge. "You should've left it there."

"Captain Rogers," she started.

"That's not who I am anymore," he said sharply, pushing the shield back into her hands.

"Bullshit." She shocked herself as much as him. Shoving the shield toward him, she set her shoulders and raised her chin. "Peggy Carter was my aunt and she'd kick your ass if she heard you say that. Take the damn shield."

He blinked at her, but did as she told him. He carried it back to the bed and set it on the floor before sitting down. "You might've noticed the stars and strips don't mean much here, miss."

"Then scrape the paint off," she retorted. "The shield was never about stripes or stars and you know that." He was measuring her response, she was certain of it.

"What's your name?"

"Sharon." She resisted the urge to stand at attention.

"I haven't seen you before." 

"I haven't been here long. A day, maybe two. I don't really know."

That got his attention. "Is Earth still there? How long has it been since the Chitauri came?"

"It's...it's been two years since the Battle of New York." She took a step forward. "Someone led me here. A person. An _intelligence_. Someone or something is watching over us. Over you, over me. They led me to the shield and then to you. "

He blinked at her as though surprised. "It's still there."

"Captain." She stopped, her gaze going to the shield again. "The men who died today. It wasn't your fault."

He was watching her again, measuring and thoughtful. Finally he moved over and nodded to the bed, indicating that she should take a seat. "Tell me more about Earth."


End file.
